Enjoy the real-time chronicle of a fallen author's rise in the bloody new ebook arena.

Southern Scotch

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Rounding Up the Indie Big Dogs: July 2012

Good
morning. And it is a fine one for those of us who love to read and
who don't feel we have to pay $25-$30for fiction force-fed down our
throats by the teetering Trad Pub Cabal. For those who salute the
Ebook Revolution, our hearts are high as we set out. In our hands,
our treasured weapons: the beloved ebook readers that transport us
today to the future...where the real cream at last is beginning to
rise in an entirely new breed of writers.

These
writers are all proud members of what I call Glad School: veteran
gladiators of the Trad Pub wars...who've struck out on their own and
won their independence. No conventioneering, no toadying to agents,
no caving in to established conventions, no fear of breaking Sacred
Rules. The three writers I've selected for the opening roundup
couldn't be more different. But the one thing they all have common
makes for some great news indeed:

They
have nothing but contempt for the sort of agent who would say, as one
did say to me: 'I'm sorry, but I can't read your prose and watch TV
at the same time.' These three writers write for readers who, they
know, do love to read. And each is completely committed to
delivering the ultimate bang for your bucks, whatever Sacred Rules he
may be required to break.

Final
note before the reviews: I know none of these good Glads. None has
asked me to review his book. I have no professional debts to repay.
Their style and behavior on Twitter impressed me, that's all I can
say. I checked them out on Amazon. And, brothers and sisters, I dug
what I saw. That said, the first Big Dog Mini-Reviews. All are available on Amazon Kindle.

Vigilante
by Claude Bouchard. The first
in a series of thrillers featuring Montreal detective Dave McCall
and computer whiz Chris Barry offers a terrific spin on Death Wish
in an exotic setting. Time: 1996. A crafty, savage killer is
cleansing Canadian streets in cruel ways...then, of course, feeding
the details to his favorite reporter. That central conceit dates
back to Jack the Ripper. But Bouchard has his dark fun with it,
along with every other staple of the serial killer genre. In fact,
CB plays a shell game worthy of Ira Levin (no slouch at the fine art
of bloody surprise, as you'll know if you've ever seen Death Trap or
read A Kiss Before Dying). CB plays so suavely with his list of
suspects, and he is so bloody smoooooth in style as he bounces our
heads off the walls, that I can't help but think of him as the Indie
Cary Grant. And, guess what, he starts off with a stick in the eye
of our old friend, Miss Grundy: an opening flashback that's very
well done and gets the tale's engine in gear. Bravo, CB, you
smoothie.

Blacklisted
by Luke Romyn. Okay, if
Claude is Cary Grant, then Luke Romyn must be Sly Stallone. The
Dirty Dozen meets The Expendables meets Inglorious Basterds here
when a team of criminal 'scum' is assembled, then set off on not
just one but a string of suicide assignments. The hero, Mike
Swanson, begins as a brutalized boy and goes on to lose two beloved
mentors before becoming a vigilante...then a member of the team.
His early training as a boxer and then bouncer, are especially well
done—and extra-interesting because of Romyn's own background in
security and bouncing. Actually, Romyn's rugged photo confirm his
author creds. And his defiant starting note hint at his own
brutalization by the Trad Pub Cabal. In the hands of a less able
writer, this would have been an okay actioner. But this baby rises
above that...and how. This is my world, Romyn says, and there's no
take it or leave it—you'll take it. Miss Grundy takes more sticks
than one: from an ongoing opening flashback the book couldn't live
without...to the completely convincing romance between two serial
killers. Romyn's the real deal for action. Go, Sly!

The
Fall of Billy Hitchings by Kirkus MacGowan.
I was put off from this novel, at first, because it sounded like
YA. But when one critic called it a cross between Indiana Jones and
Jason Bourne, my interest grew.. A sneak peek at the opening pages
on Amazon inspired me to order it. And I'm hear to tell you I'm
glad that I did. Forget YA. Forget Bourne and Indiana Jones. Know
this: Investigator John Reeves needs to recover three plates, whose
powers he still hasn't guessed...Someone else wants the
plates...Billy, a troubled teen, is the only one able to tap the
plates' power—sometimes with disastrous results. I've compared KM
to actor George Kennedy because his style reminds me of that not
always gentle giant: George was often a lovable figure unaware of
his real strength—and, just so, KM may draw you into a warm scene
with a hug...then squeeze the life right out of you. Sticks in the
eyes of Miss Grundy? You bet! KM, defiantly, refused to write his
fable in clear-cut black and white. Without stinting on the action,
he always takes the needed time to plumb the moral/emotional depths.

Will this be a second John Reeves story? Am curious because Hitchings was labeled a John Reeves Novel...but you also once said you were working on a noirish mystery. Any concerns that your readers may feel somewhat...Wrathful if they don't get more Reeves?

About Me

Under the name Kelley Wilde I published four horror novels with two major publishers before turning to the new ebook frontier. I now publish mysteries and romantic suspense. My new blog, The Seattle Kid, chronicles my strategies for a fall cross-country move: www.theseattlekid.blogspot.com